


Punch-Drunk

by Trojie



Series: How Not To Pull Your Punches [1]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Boxing & Fisticuffs, M/M, Rough Sex, author is a massive cockblock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-04
Updated: 2011-07-04
Packaged: 2017-10-21 01:14:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/219263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trojie/pseuds/Trojie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The fighting doesn't mean what you think it does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Punch-Drunk

**Author's Note:**

> A very long time ago, Photoclerk prompted 'rough body play', and I wrote [Bruise-lights](http://archiveofourown.org/works/183369), but it … wasn't quite what I meant to write. Then AutomaticJoys asked for Arthur and Eames boxing/sparring, and with their powers combined, the two requests turned into … this.
> 
> Beta-read by Photoclerk, who knows how to wrangle me just right <3

The first time Eames met Arthur it was in a gym (long con, long story), and he asked Arthur to spar with him. He was mostly joking, but Arthur shrugged fluidly and said, 'Sure.'

Shirtless in a pair of trousers that were certainly too expensive to be in a boxing ring, Arthur looked fucking young, and fucking vulnerable, right up until Eames cracked him one in the ribs, just gently, to measure him up, and Arthur let it land -- in order to get in closer and get at Eames's _eyes_.

Eames had only his well-trained stance to keep him from reeling at the force of the blow, the sharp sweet slice of Arthur's rough knuckles on his skin registering milliseconds before the fact that this kid actually had some skills.

Arthur licked a curl of blood off his knuckle - Eames's, from the sluggishly-bleeding tear in the soft skin under his eyelid - and grinned. He still looked fucking young. But that was the last time Eames ever thought of Arthur as vulnerable.

***

Arthur ducks round a corner with Eames in someone else's dream, and behind them the White House explodes into flames, and Arthur looks into Eames's eyes with an expression that's mostly adrenaline-filled lust (Eames knows that look well, on his own face but mostly on other people's) and says 'Jesus _fuck_ I want to hit you right now,'

'Do it,' Eames says, because 'hit' is a word he's more than happy to have associated with 'fuck'. So Arthur swings and Eames lets it land, although he shifts to a stance that won't have him falling over. It's a body-shot, solid and fast, and it connects with Eame's ribs but punches straight to his groin in the best traditions of metaphysics and Freud.

They don't get to the fuck - Arthur just hits and hits, something like hunger on his face, and Eames takes it because every blow telegraphs Arthur's _intent_ more than it transmits the protesting nerve-messages of this body that Eames is inhabiting in a dream that isn't his. And Arthur's intent is to give, and oh, but Eames is happy to take in this circumstance. He pulls his shirt open to give Arthur space to work and to see, and braces himself to sway with the onslaught like the perfect punching bag.

His skin reddens, whitens, blackens (bruises fill fast in the dream because they both want to see them), his lips puff, the skin below his eyes tears, and when Arthur seems like he's going to stop Eames can't bear the thought of losing the stimulation, so he blocks a punch and ducks the next until Arthur's eyes light with concentration again.

Now it's not Eames just taking it, it's them trading blow for blow like kisses; testing, careful, looking for reactions the same way as when you first lean in and press your mouth hesitantly against someone else's - you want to know what they like, you want to know what they _crave_. Eames can see Arthur's concentrating, weighing and measuring the force of his blows, tailoring them to Eames's needs. He does the same, looking for Arthur's parted lips and tiny grunts and chasing them down.

So they spar in this dream, where Big Ben is on fire and the projections are tearing down the Taj Mahal. It's post-apocalyptic picture-postcard land here, for a mark who always wanted to travel will put her most precious secrets in a suitcase, and where should suitcases go but to their destinations? Arthur-the-flight-attendant and Eames-the-baggage-handler saw to it that it got there, but without its contents. Now her secrets are in Arthur's head and Eames is doing his level best to smack them out again because the fire in Arthur's eyes rages every time he makes contact.

On a whim, he snarls his fingers in Arthur's hair and yanks him close, and _feels_ Arthur's knees tremble with his longing to be on them, before Eames shoves him away again and feints left, right, and gets a solid hammer of a fist to his solar plexus for his trouble.

They don't get to the fuck in the dream, but when the timer runs out Arthur slides the IV out of Eames's wrist as if he owns it and runs a finger up between Eames's cuff and the delicate skin of his wrist. Eames's trousers seem tight, his shirt seems too soft against skin that his mind is sure should be red and black and scraped-sore.

He's going to ask Arthur back to his hotel room and get a promise from him that he will put back the bruises, every single one, that the PASIV took away. He's going to go to his knees and bind Arthur's hands in linen and mouth at his fingers and touch him through his trousers until Arthur throws him up against the wall and grins dimples at him. They're going to go all night, Eames knows it.


End file.
